by Nadia Aguiar
Simon began to turn the pages quicker. Schools of sinewy question marks, seductive, perplexing, moved silently through the margins in search of something. Their parents seemed to be working on some type of problem. Their mother had left notes beside their father’s, answering his questions, posing new ones. Some things were crossed out. Some phrases appeared again and again, as if their parents were musing through a puzzle that they had yet to solve: Origin of substance? Location of epicenter? Probable source? The children could make no sense of it. And then the entries came to an abrupt end. The last record was made right before their parents had gone onto the deck in the storm: a simple note about the storm, and that they were going on deck to fix the forestay. After that the pages were blank, as seemingly lifeless as the bottom of the ocean. Simon turned quickly back to a page where they could see their parents’ handwriting. It made both of the children feel better to see it there. Simon reached out and touched one of the pages.
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Simon. “Why would they have drawn all of this? You’re only supposed to record coordinates and what the weather is and what other boats you see.”
“Can it still help us?” asked Maya.
Simon nodded. “I think so,” he said. “All the coordinates are still here. But I wonder what all the rest of this stuff is about.”
Simon pored over the logbook and began reconstructing the path the Pamela Jane had been on before the storm. Later he could wonder about the purpose of the mysterious drawings. Right now they had to focus all their attention on getting to land.
“We’ve been sailing northwest since we left St. Alban’s,” he said. “According to this, we were sailing northwest at 6 knots at 11 degrees north latitude, 52 degrees west longitude when the storm struck,” he said. “The storm was blowing from the north and we were caught in it for about six hours, would you say?”
“I don’t know,” Maya said. “At least.”
“Well, let’s see,” said Simon. “Papi notes that there were signs the storm was approaching at twenty-four hundred hours last night. He made a note here that he and Mami were going onto the deck at oh one hundred hours. You were awake then and I woke up right after—we know the storm was pretty bad by then. By the time we woke up this morning, at seven hundred hours, the storm had probably passed about two hours earlier, which would mean the storm winds were blowing us south for six hours, which, I think, would probably put us somewhere near here. . . . Now if the sun is here . . .”
Maya found it hard to pay attention. The whole thing was too much like a math problem for her. Maya didn’t like charts and numbers and calculations so she just watched as Simon worked.
“If my calculations are correct,” he said finally. “We should sail due west. That’s our closest point to land.” He smiled triumphantly at Maya.
“Great,” she said. “Thank you. Now, I’m going to start cleaning up the cabin. Can you get us on course?”
“Aye, aye,” said Simon.
After Maya had gone below deck, the Pamela Jane rolled suddenly from starboard to port, and the pencil Simon had been using flew out of his hand and rolled across the deck. When he went to get it, for a moment he thought he saw the strange blue line again, this time on the other side of them, receding swiftly into the distance.
The jib mast had been damaged in the storm and some sheets needed to be replaced so for the next hours Maya and Simon worked to repair everything and keep the Pamela Jane on course. They took turns on watch. The one off watch sat with Penny and mended torn sails. Penny seemed puzzled that their parents weren’t there and she kept looking around the deck for them. Every time she did, Maya felt a lump rise in her throat.
Simon caught a red snapper and cooked it for their lunch. When Penny was hungry, they fed her tinned milk and brought her out to sit in the shade. Simon complained, but Maya wouldn’t let him have any of the milk so that she could save it for the baby. When a swell caught her off balance and she spilled half of it on the deck he sighed and made a big production of the whole thing. Maya had to grit her teeth to stop herself from getting into an argument.
In the evening, Maya tucked Penny into her little hanging cot in the cabin and sang to her until she fell asleep. On her way back to the deck, she stopped in the doorway to her parents’ quarters. She could only bear to look in their room for a moment, but she took one of her mother’s sweaters and put it on, less because she was cold than she thought it would be comforting. Outside, an orange glow was seeping through the water, sinking into the ocean depths. Darkness came suddenly and then they were moving along beneath a tapestry of stars, new ones popping out every minute. She pulled the sweater more tightly around her.
“We’ll have to take turns on watch tonight,” she said.
Simon nodded and they sat there quietly, staring into the darkness.
“Wait,” said Simon excitedly. Something had occurred to him that might be able to help. “We forgot about the flares!”
“Right!” said Maya. She felt excited, too. The flares could be seen for miles—maybe a nearby ship would see their distress signal and they would be rescued.
They had never shot distress flares before, but their parents had taught them how in case there was ever an emergency. Simon found the flares and brought them onto the deck. He lit the first one and stood back as it rocketed into the sky, leaving a train of sparks that were quickly snuffed out by the damp air. A couple of hundred feet up they exploded, illuminating the Pamela Jane and the sea around her. The sky and the water blazed orange for a moment, and the dark backs of fish were visible beneath the surface of the sea. Then the salty blackness swallowed the flare, and Maya and Simon stood there on the gently rolling deck, waiting for their eyes to adjust again after the brief, sudden brilliance.
They waited a while before they lit the second flare, turning and squinting at the horizon all around them in hopes of seeing a ship’s light or an answering flare. But there was nothing, just the sound of a fish jumping out of the water. They fired the second flare, but still there was nothing. The smell of smoke lingered in the air, and Maya’s disappointment as she scanned the darkness was bitter.
They sat in silence for a while.
“I could stay up with you,” offered Simon.
Maya shook her head. “Get some sleep. We’ll switch in a few hours. There’s no point in both of us trying to stay awake at the same time and then falling asleep and missing seeing a ship. Or land.”
Simon sat there for a few minutes before he went below deck. Without him, sitting in the darkness, a keen sense of aloneness overwhelmed Maya. She missed her parents sharply, as she had not when she had been busy all day. She felt the enormity of the sea around her. Her little brother and sister were in the cabin, young and in need of her protection. She was the eldest; she was in charge. She was responsible for them until they found their parents. Until they found their parents . . . Maya felt another stab of fear. She had no idea where they were or where they were sailing. If they didn’t find land in a day or two they would be out of food for Penny. What were they going to do? The night was hot and humid but Maya shivered. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t see Simon until he was standing right in front of her, holding a blanket and pillow.
“I checked on Penny,” he said. “She’s still sleeping. I thought I would come and sleep out here with you. For the fresh air.”
“Oh,” said Maya. “All right.” She was touched—she knew that Simon knew that she would be lonely and afraid out there by herself. Tears burned her eyes. She was happy that he couldn’t see them in the dark. She wanted to say something, anything to him, about the day, about how frightened she had been and how glad she was that he had been there with her.
“I think we’re making good time,” she said instead.
“Yes,” said Simon from beneath the blanket. “The wind has really picked up. We’ll definitely reach land by tomorrow.”
Maya murmured affirmatively, as if of course this was true.
“Maya?”
“Go to sleep.”
Simon sighed.
“Good night, Maya.”
“Good night.”
Soon Simon was asleep. Maya sat awake on watch. She was an experienced sailor, and she kept her eye on the horizon for the lights of land or another ship, and she got up to adjust the sails every now and then. But as fine a sailor as she was, she was too preoccupied to notice that they were veering ever so slightly off course, just a few degrees with every mile of ocean they left behind. With her brother asleep beside her and her sister safely tucked in in the cabin below, Maya struggled to keep her eyes open as the Pamela Jane—her yellow hull and crisp white sails illuminated in the moonlight—plowed through the warm sea.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Peculiar Shell * A Visit from a Green Parrot * Land Ho! *
Ashore on an Unknown Island * The Disappearance
of the PAMELA JANE * Into the Jungle
It was late the next morning when the green parrot lighted on the bow, rising and falling with the waves, ruffling its green crest. A bird meant that land couldn’t be far off! The children looked eagerly at the sea all around them, but there was no sign of shore. The parrot cracked a lustrous shell in its sharp beak, one half of it clattering onto the deck.
Simon bent down to pick it up. He held it up to the sky and ran his fingers over its nubby ridges. On first glance it was unremarkable. It was a yellowed ivory color with deep grooves whorled on its surface. Its inside was polished smooth as marble. In its center was an iridescent blotch typical of that seen on the inside of a common oyster, somewhere between deep cobalt blue and bottle green in color. It could have been any shell. Simon was about to toss it overboard when something caught his eye.
The blotch seemed to be glowing faintly. It was hard to tell, as it would be hard to see a lamp turned on in a room flooded with sunlight. Simon cupped his hands over it and peered into the darkness and then pulled his head back in surprise. It was glowing! Though there was no living creature left in it, somehow the shell itself seemed alive.
“Maya, look at this,” he said, holding it out to her. “I’ve never seen a shell like this before. Have you?”
She glanced at it quickly. “I don’t know,” she said. “But right now you’re only supposed to be on watch. We don’t want to miss land.”
Simon looked back down at the shell. As he watched, the light in it seemed to be fading and then it died completely. The shell lay extinguished in the palm of his hand. Frowning, Simon put it in his pocket. He looked back up at the parrot, sitting high in the rigging, and then he went to keep watch at the bow.
“We may be able to see land from here,” said Maya. “I’m going to look out from the top. Watch Penny.”
The bosun’s chair was like a swing-set seat with a seat belt. It was connected to the mast with a pulley. The person sitting in it could hoist herself up the height of the mast, which Maya did, sweating by the time she reached the top. She felt dizzy when she looked straight down the mast to the deck, so she kept her gaze out to sea. The top of the mast added a few miles to her sight, but still the horizon was empty. Off to starboard a few miles out, a shaggy golden pasture of sargasso seaweed rose and fell on the swells, and off the stern Maya could see the dark backs of a school of bonitos racing through the cool water. She rested her cheek on the mast and felt the gentle sway of the waves and let her thoughts wander. Maybe if she stayed there for long enough, by the time she came back down her mother and father would be back, her mother down in the laboratory, her father making notes in the logbook as he kept watch.
She was startled by a shadow silhouetted on the other side of the topsail. The green parrot appeared above the sail, hovering in the wind for a moment and watching her, before dipping down and coasting through the rigging and perching atop the jib mast.
What are you up to? she thought as she watched it sway stiffly to keep its balance. There was something strange about the bird’s interest in them.
“Well?” Simon called up to her.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Not a thing in sight.”
After one final look around, Maya loosened the line and began lowering the bosun’s chair. On the deck, she tied it back in its place and went and sat beside Simon on the bow.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“We have to conserve food,” she said. “And you ate an hour ago.”
“But I’m growing. I need food.”
“We’ll eat as soon as we catch something.”
“Well, if I can’t eat, I might nap,” said Simon.
“All right, you nap. I’ll keep watch for a while.”
The green parrot ticked back and forth on the jib mast as the morning wore on. Simon was napping in the cabin, and Penny was drowsing under her frilly white parasol so Maya was the first one to sight land—soft, boiling mists lifting over hills in the distance.
“Simon!” she shouted. “Come quick!”
Simon scrambled on deck and ran to the railing. They gazed at an island as it came into view. Green mountains loomed over pink sand beaches. Here and there the land fell away in sheer cliffs where flowers fluttered in cascading mats of vines. Green cushions of vegetation padded the hills. The smell of cinnamon, cloves, and other spices wafted over the water, and sugarcane fields lay flat and silver in the breeze. The sight held Maya and Simon transfixed and then they began to dance wildly around on the deck.
“Land ho!” shouted Simon, sprinting to the bow and back to the stern.
When she was younger, Maya had been able to turn fifteen cartwheels from the bow to the stern of the Pamela Jane. Forgetting that she was too old to cartwheel anymore, she turned eleven of them before she fell and sat there out of breath, grinning, watching the beautiful sweep of land coming closer. Then she got to her feet.
“We’ll sail around the coast until we see a town,” she said. “Come on!”
Maya and Simon wanted to get to the leeward side of the island, where bringing the Pamela Jane to shore would be safest. At first everything went smoothly. Simon stood at the bow and watched for reefs, and Maya stayed at the wheel and a mild wind drove them easily westward around the island. The parrot dropped from the top of the mast and squawked once and took flight toward land. But as it did, suddenly, out of nowhere, a brisk crosswind rose and the Pamela Jane began picking up speed—too much speed when they didn’t know where they were going or what lay ahead in the water. They reefed the mainsail but the wind only seemed to grow more intense.
“Tack!” Maya cried, and the boom swung across the deck and the Pamela Jane veered from starboard to port. Still they were being pushed swiftly toward shore. Simon abandoned the bow and helped Maya to drop the sails, and for the next few minutes they yelled orders to each other, shouting to be heard over the wind, but despite their best efforts they were rapidly drawing close to shore. A tidy cove and lick of white beach came into view and they were heading straight for it.
“I can’t do anything!” Maya shouted. “We’ll just have to go in!”
The wind died once they were inside the sheltered arms of the cove. Maya and Simon began dropping the jib sail as the current gently drew in the Pamela Jane. The water was crystal clear down to a white sand seafloor. When it was shallow enough, Maya called for the anchor to be dropped. It took both of them to turn the winch before the heavy steel anchor splashed into the water and sank, dragging the chain with it as it went. After a moment it held fast.
“Well,” Simon said. “What do we do now?”
It was a good question. Maya didn’t have an answer. It had seemed like a triumph finding land—but now that they were there, what should they do? She was hoping that the wind would drop soon and they would be able to sail out of the cove and around the island until they saw a town. But the wind might not die down until the evening and the whole long afternoon sprawled in front of them. She couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there doing nothing that whole time. She gazed up at the great green hi
lls rising steeply above the beach.
“I think we should climb those hills and get a good view of the whole island,” she said. “Maybe we’ll be able to see a town from there.”
“Hmm,” said Simon, looking skeptically at the hills. “I was thinking we could build a signal fire on the beach.”
“And just sit here and wait for some ship to maybe come by, maybe in a few weeks or months?” said Maya impatiently. “We have to go and find help for Mami and Papi. We can’t just sit here.”
“Do you see the size of those hills?” Simon asked.
“Fine,” Maya said. “You stay here and build your signal fire, mullet head. You can keep Penny with you, too. Less for me to carry.”
Simon considered. “Mami would probably say that splitting up wasn’t wise.”
“You’re just scared to stay by yourself for an afternoon.”
“I am not! You’re just so slow that you could never make it to the top of a hill and back in an afternoon. I’d be an old man before you’d get back here. An old, old man.” Simon stood and walked around in a circle slowly, his back stooped, his hand trembling on the knob of an imaginary cane.
Maya rolled her eyes.
“Well, I’m not waiting here and doing nothing. And it’s even possible that the same winds and current that carried us here brought them here, too. Who knows—they could even be on the next beach over right now and if we sit here we’d never know it.”
“And we could climb one of those hills and all we’d see is other hills, and a ship would come by and sail right past without us, and—” Simon said.
“And nothing. You stay here then, if that’s what you want.”